Photo for Getty Images via UFC.com
UFC middleweight Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva (31-4) successfully defended his title for a record straight nine times in the Octagon last weekend, and he did it with an injured shoulder.
Silva earned his fifteenth straight victory by beating top contender Yushin Okami in the main event of UFC 134, in ‘The Spider’s’ home country of Brazil.
Speaking to Veja.com (and translated using Google Translate) Silva explained to the news site that he injured his shoulder a month before the fight, and even had an MRI done to see how bad the injury was.
You fought with him 100% physically? Not really. A month before the fight, I hurt my shoulder struggling with Junior dos Santos. and entered the river with pain. I had to take anti-inflammatory and advise the technical committee on the medicine I took.
How did this injury? I talked to my doctors. I did an MRI shortly after I began to feel pain in the shoulder and the doctors released me, said it was not anything too grave.É a small lesion, I think the muscles of the rotator cuff, but that bothers you, I’ll stay a while at rest to treatment.
Why do you let your guard down when he realizes it’s okay to fight? Sometimes people think I’m arrogant doing it. But he has moves that can not be ‘read’ hands are lowered. Training with low hands increase the reflection gives more speed to the blows. It is more difficult to see what the opponent blow when the hand is underneath. That’s why we could overthrow the Yushin in the first round. If I had his hands up and struck him would have defended. A style that is done to confuse opponents. Always at the beginning of the fight looking security point – where I can get off guard, but I’m not beaten.
Silva talks about a variety of different subjects, including an interesting question about his feelings on the sale of Alcohol at events like UFC 134.
Fans watching the live Rio de Janeiro broadcast may not have noticed just how rowdy the fans at the HSBC arena were, but several of the media commented of the fans actions.
Apparently beer was cheap, leaving the fans more than willing to toss their full plastic cups in celebration. More than one media personality had their laptop covered in cheap beer at the Rio show.
Speaking to Veja.com Silva, who doesn’t drink himself, disagrees with the sale of alcohol at events feeling that it’s sale doesn’t match the event and fuels fan aggression (likely meaning that it fuels the fans desire to get into mischief after events).
Are you against selling alcohol inside the arena? It does not match fight, and everyone there was drinking. It is not an environment to sell alcohol. A lot of people out of the arena nervous, adrenaline, because the fights. Ronaldo, for example, told me he left the arena with a will to fight. Imagine how many people came away with the adrenaline of the fight and to top it alcoholic? I do not drink and I am against selling alcohol in the arenas.
I doubt in any North American venue, where the sale of alcohol makes up a big chunk of revenue, that Silva will find many companies sympathetic to the Brazilians views.